Digital

Category: Miscellany

  • Out with the old … in with the new

    This article is a place-holder to the progress of the planned switch-off of the analogue PSTN (public switched telephone network) by 2025, and its implications to all of us, as Openreach moves to implement a fully digital service. It’s a dynamic document that will change over the next few months and the next couple of years so please look back for updates and further information.

    What implications might this have for older people?

    • Digital services are not universally good across rural areas
    • There will need to be a solution to the issue of digital services requiring power – what happens if there’s a break in power supply

    What implications might this have for people with certain disabilities?

    • It’s been reported to us that certain people with visual problems have been experiencing difficulties in the Salisbury pilot area with the withdrawal of the 1471 service, with call-back not working, and with needing to install a new phone number

    Here’s a link to the Progress Openreach has reported by January 2022. Much of this is very technical, so some of the following information might be more readable.

    Here’s a briefing from BT on the project; and an update on what’s happening in Wales forwarded to me in my role sitting on the National Pensioners Convention. Which? have also published a briefing on the subject which I encourage you all to look at.

    I’ve also written the article below, which will hopefully appear in the latest Cardiff u3a magazine …

    ====

    Ring, ring: Ready for the big ‘phone switchover?

    Only three years until 2025 when all telephone providers will do the big “switchover” moving landline customers from the country’s traditional telephone network to digital technologies and analogue services are finally shut down. 

    Though BT published a timescale back in 2019, many older people’s organisations have expressed concern that the public have not been given enough information about the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) moving to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), what it really means and how it could adversely affect older and vulnerable people.

    Among them is the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), which represents 1.5 million members in Wales, England and Northern Ireland. 

    Among the big questions is what happens if there’s a break in power supplies and people need to access emergency services – because the new system will run off broadband – and handsets will have to be plugged into an electricity socket.

    Providers say solutions will be found – which will include the provision of emergency battery-powered backups for phones and routers.

    This scenario became a reality last November when Storm Arwen hit the UK, causing widespread power outages and left 9,000 homes without power for more than a week.

    Jan Shortt, NPC General Secretary did interviews with Talk Radio and other stations, and heard from affected listeners.

    She said: “They raised the issue of not being able to charge mobile phones and other devices and therefore not able to summon help. It is clear that the majority of the population had not heard of the digital switch.”

    In January Ofcom held an online public meeting to give an update on the “switchover” rollout throughout the UK and provide an opportunity to ask questions.

    Jeff Richards, an NPC Wales executive member and a retired Swansea BT engineer, attended. He said: “Unfortunately they did not answer any questions that I raised regarding vulnerable customers nor anything on power supply. I felt that my questions were merely swatted away.”

    BT have agreed to meet the NPC to address their concerns – which include, who will pay for the battery packs (some around £160) – the customer or provider?

    Virgin Media has already promised that vulnerable customers with “accessibility needs or don’t have a mobile phone” will be given an emergency backup line at no extra cost.

    Unsurprisingly, customers in various areas have reported teething problems as the system is being rolled out. For example, people in the Salisbury pilot area with visual problems have experienced difficulties with the withdrawal of the 1471 service and the need to get new phone numbers. 

    Hopefully, in the three years left of the rollout, teething problems will have been sorted. But be prepared: only an estimated 1.5million out of 29million landlines have so far been converted – and one day those old phones will stop ringing!

    For further information:

    Jenny Sims is a Cardiff U3A Computer Group Member, Chair, NPC’s Digital Working Party and an NPC Wales Executive Member

  • In Case of Emergency (ICE)

    I promised to find and bring back to prominence a post I’d written a couple of years back. It was this one …

    ICE – that’s In Case of Emergency

    … Ann mentioned an app that the Emergency Services like you to have installed on their phones which is called what3words as it enables them to pinpoint quite accurately where you’re contacting them from. You might like to consider installing it on your phone as well as following the advice contained in the link at the bottom of the post I wrote …

    How to add Emergency info to your Phone’s Lock Screen

    The Virgin media link I showed at the meeting (and which is also on Flipboard) is here.

  • On-Line Reading.

    From the presentation used on April 29th, 2019. Philip Edwards.

    You can find a .pdf version of the presentation here.

    Just a quick word of warning. I originally wrote this article on my old laptop. I wiped that machine without taking one last look to see whether there was anything of value stored on its drive. Lesson learned. That’s why I’m writing this out again.

    You probably know this, but just in case you don’t, if you love reading, there is a wealth of reading material available on-line which can be read on a desk-top, lap-top, tablet or mobile phone. This is what you do.

    Ebooks and Audiobooks from Cardiff Library.

    This is not straightforward, but once you have the system up and running, everything works like a dream.

    1. You need a library membership card. Make a note of your membership number.
    2. You also need to ask the library to issue you with a PIN number.
    3. On your tablet or phone, download the Borrowbox app. This will be in the App Store for iPads and in the Google Play Store for Android devices.
    4. Open the app and login, providing your account number and PIN number. You’ll only have to do this once.
    5. You can then borrow eBooks and Audio Books for free. You can also reserve real books for collection. You can keep the borrowed eBook or Audio Book for up to three weeks. If you forget to return it, your tablet will do that automatically.

    Magazines

    This is a very similar procedure. You need the same account number and PIN number, but a different application.

    It used to be that you needed the RB Digital app but it appears that things have changed. You now need an app called Libby (from April 30th.) RB Digital app goes offline on April 30th.

    It is being replaced by a new app called Libby.

    It is already available and very easy to use.

    It also appears to be able to find ebooks as well as magazines:- a one-stop shop.

    The home page is simply a joy:- far more inviting than either Borrowbox or RB Digital.What if you want to buy reading material?

    Things you should know.

    Kindle ebooks will play on Kindle devices, on any type of tablet or mobile phone.

    You can also read Kindle content on a desktop or laptop by using the Kindle Reader application.

    Is it possible to buy and read Kindle content without purchasing a device?

    Things you should know.

    As far as I know, Apple ebooks will only play on Apple devices.

    Well, actually it might be possible but it doesn’t look easy.Another thing you should know.

    Audio books are available for Kindle, P.C.s, laptops and non-Apple devices.

    You have to buy a subscription for £7.99 per month but then have access to their whole library.

    Another thing you should know. Apple audio books are available individually.

    Just one more thing you should know. You usually have to pay for Kindle classic novels. Apple classic novels are free.

  • Lockdown:- It helps to have a project.

    Harry Davies’ Pantomimes?

    Soon after retiring and  joining U3A I was asked to prepare something to show people how to use computers to research their family tree. Well, that really sparked an interest. I started researching my grandfather, George Henry Davies (Harry). He was a colliery farrier from Blaenllechau in the Rhondda Valley. I was two years old when he died. Sadly, I have no memories of him.

    As a younger man, he joined the army in 1915. After a very short period in France, he was shipped to Salonika in Greece. These days, not many people remember that any fighting went on there. Harry stayed in Salonika until early 1918.

    During 2020 the whole world changed beyond all measure as countries around the globe suffered the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. For many, including myself, had to endure many months in lockdown with limited opportunity to go out and socialise. My music making with my recorder group, Morris dancers and folk sessions all came to a grinding halt. For many months I simply didn’t feel like playing any music at all. Then a friend introduced me to the idea of making Acapella videos .

    Using this system it is possible to create little arrangements with myself playing all of the parts.

    Around the same time I learned that the Imperial War Museum had a set of pantomimes from the First World War Salonika front. These pantomimes were performed by a party of traveling ambulance men, the 85th Field Ambulance. With the help of the Salonika Campaign Society, I’ve managed to get scanned images of the three pantomimes, Dick Whittington, Bluebeard, and Aladdin in Macedonia. They provide a strange and unique insight into the lives of soldiers posted to this long-forgotten battlefront.

    At the moment, I’m trying to put together some of those Acapella videos, trying to breathe new life into those old tunes. I’m keying in each note of the tunes into Musescore software. This must be a bit like following a knitting pattern stitch by stitch with no idea what the finished item will ever look like. I’ve created some musical videos with the help of Apple iMovie and Acapella :- Pitch Perfect.

    Initially, I thought I’d try to learn one or two of the tunes. I couldn’t be certain that my grandfather Harry had ever attended any of these pantomimes but after a short period of study, I feel that he probably did.

    The Macedonia front was quite unlike the experience of the Western Front in France. During Summer, it was fiercely hot but Winter brought freezing conditions and snow. For most of the time, the battle lines were fairly static. There was little chance of any entertainment. Only lucky soldiers managed to visit the town of Salonika. Curiously, soldiers developed a strange form of entertainment:- Racing tortoises. Well, that was impossible during Winter as the tortoises would be in hibernation.

    Also, it appears that these pantomimes were incredibly popular, frequently out-performing pantomime productions staged at Drury Lane.

    Let’s imagine then that grandfather Harry did manage to get a ticket for the pantomime. Imagine him trudging through the snow to a small barn, nicknamed The Kopriva Palace Theatre. We’ll take a seat beside him and enjoy some of the tunes that he would have enjoyed all those years ago.

    I’ve finished three videos of songs from Music of Macedonia. You can see them here.

    I experienced a strange coincidence when I was looking through the music from Aladdin in Macedonia. Look at the name of the composer. Not my grandfather, G.H. Davies but a strange coincidence, another G.H. Davies.

    Farewell from Dick Whittington.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 22nd October 2020

    There’s a direct inverse correlation (I used to teach statistics) between the amount of talking we do, and the amount of notes I take. Whether that translates into a direct positive correlation between the value of what we say, and the amount of notes – I leave you to judge. Anyway, somehow with a good attendance admittedly of 17 (thanks Jim for the screenshot above) we managed to talk for over 90 mins and I didn’t have time to present what I’d prepared on Open Source and Free Software, although an article I prepared on the subject is available here, and my “Top of the Pops” for free software is to be viewed here.

    Hopefully I’ll have made you feel “right guilty”, and I can write up the few notes that I’ve got 🙂

    I started off with a review of the Notes from the last meeting – I don’t think there was too much to add to them; Paul will hopefully add an image of the day-time capture from his CCTV to his notes from his presentation last time; he also reported that his Vodafone phone had returned from its enforced holiday and was now working fine and no worse fro its swim; Jenny reported that she’d setup her first Zoom meeting fine and that it had been a success; David was ploughing his way through the massive manual for his new Tesco phone; and I reported that problems with Virgin Media seemed to be occurring in other parts of Cardiff as well.

    I then turned to News items which I’d loaded into Flipboard and quickly went through them. We spent a little while in looking at the changes to the PayPal Terms of Business which for once needed to be looked at as they’re introducing a charge of £12 if you don’t access your PayPal account in a 12 month period. I’d already deleted an inactive PayPal account, and you’re advised to just check you haven’t got one too. You don’t need to do a transaction using the account (thanks Christine for clarifying that) – you just need to access it.

    We started the meeting with a rendition from our very own “tattyjacket” – Phillip who demonstrated that time has not been wasted during lockdown because not only has he managed to find, purchase and re-acquaint himself with a childhood love – an identical bassoon – but also he has learnt how to use a piece of software – Acapella [iOS Download] [Android download] – to create multi-instrument recordings. Here are a couple …

    As Phil himself said to me (about the second one) … “I’m improving”. Most certainly he is. Thanks for sharing with us.

    Sianed had been having problems with her WiFi which were eventually resolved by a visit from an engineer who reset her router {I hope I’ve got that right}. We had a brief discussion about what you can do if your WiFi seems to be running really slow. The advisability of getting baseline figures of performance for both wired and wireless connections when your network is running well; and also the first port of call – switching your router off and leaving it for a few minutes before switching back on again. [Often the IP-addresses of your devices and the cache get muddled – a reset quite often sorts it out.] She also advised that there were some very acceptable “AirPods” earphones currently available in Lidl.

    David told us that he was finding it as difficult to get an online booking to play a game of golf as I had to get a concert ticket from TicketMaster. Strange world! He also pointed us to Wales Online where the latest Covid-19 rules and regs were well explained.

    Stella appears to have a rather strange problem with her Samsung TV in which she’s being asked to upgrade her Browser (Chrome ???) so that she can continue to watch YouTube videos. This is a bit of a problem with Smart TVs – they become increasingly non-Smart with age as software is not updated. A solution might be to look for a native YouTube app for the TV, rather than use the browser. Also updating the software on the TV might be possible. Alternatively you can see whether adding a dongle to enable streaming from the service might be possible. She also seemed to be having difficulty with the sound on her Mobile Broadband (from Three).

    Christine reported that she was now having problems with household appliances and we all bemoaned the really long wait times that we were encountering during the lockdowns. The problem with her Beko dishwasher was causing the power circuit to drop out. Not a nice thing to happen – see Renee’s item below. I mentioned my problems with Dyson, and Renee reported similar problems with Anglian Windows.

    Jim felt that he might need to research getting a new laptop because more problems seemed to be occurring, other than the colours of the screen which he’d previously reported.

    Paul enthused about a Google Chromecast TV device – something like this, or a Firestick, or Roku, or … might be the solution for Stella??? He was not sure yet whether it was value for money but it looked a very professional piece of kit and it allowed him to “throw” what he was watching on his Android tablet onto his TV screen (a Sony Bravia I believe).

    Renee raised the subject of surge protectors – a very good topic and one that I wholeheartedly support. I must have at least three multi-socket extension towers with surge protection built into them. They’re more expensive than a normal multi-socket extension but they’re really worth their weight in gold when there’s power problems around. She updated us on the “phishing saga” which without any intervention by herself went through the complete gamut of customer service steps! She resisted clicking on any links at each step.

    Marilyn has a strange problem with her iMac not waking-up from sleep. I’ve sent her an email with some suggestions about what she should try, but it might be worth getting on to Apple Support as I believe the machine is still under warranty.

    Margaret praised the information on the Cardiff U3A website – a BIG SHOUT-OUT here for Owen who’s improved the website immensely. Many thanks. She mentioned in particular the links to talks.

    Ann taxed us with the problems a friend was having with McAfee software and Windows 7. We advised her that in all respects whether she liked Windows 10, or not, she really ought to take the machine to Neil and get him to do the upgrade and add any RAM that might be necessary to make the machine run well.

    Don told us about unused Currency Cards being “absorbed” by the issuer and people losing funds. This may or may not be related to Britain leaving the EU – certainly Brits abroad will lose the capability of having British bank accounts. A possibility I’ve used is Revolut – a multi-currency debit card. You load it up over the internet from wherever you are, or before you go abroad, spend in the local currency, and then reclaim the remaining funds when you return to the UK. We used it on our trip to Norway and it worked very well.

    John had a new iPad Pro and was loving it complete with it’s keyboard. He felt that it meant he wouldn’t need to have a laptop. We look forward for further updates as he gets to grips with it.

    Fred and Jenny will get together through email to discuss the issues of online Covid access to those in care, or who are vulnerable at home. They may have something to report back on next time. Jenny also told us that it was Get Online Week – an initiative to attempt to get more older people using the internet.

    Mike didn’t have anything he needed to add at this time.

    We mentioned URL shorteners and I said I used bit.ly – I may try and write a short note on that; I also asked whether folk knew how to take screenshots – we’ll cover that next time, and I also thought it might be worthwhile re-visiting WiFi network problems in the loight of Sianed’s difficulties.

    And that was that – unless, I’ve forgotten something, which If I have, please add in the Comment box below.

  • Protected: An extra window in your living room

    This content is password-protected. To view it, please enter the password below.

  • Protected: Televisions

    This content is password-protected. To view it, please enter the password below.

  • Creating a Google Map

    The purpose of this note is mainly a thank you to David and everyone else in the Computer group for furthering my learning over the past couple of years.  It has helped me pick up a lot of news and tips which have helped in day-to-day life. 

    One topic we discussed that I have found particularly useful and implemented in a number of places is Google maps and especially ‘my maps’ and ‘your places’.  I have drawn up a number of maps and embedded them into a website etc.

    The latest instance where I have used this is to breathe new life into a project U3A had with the Cardiff Story Museum to devise a Heritage Walking Route in the middle of town.  A small group of us spent about three months carrying out the research, being sent on a training course and devising a route and editing the material.  Unfortunately the end product never materialised.  Whether the museum ran out of funding, personnel or enthusiasm we never found out.  We were always told publication was imminent whenever we made enquiries and that was 18 months ago.

    In order to salvage something from our efforts I have recently devised a Google map to include the material we researched and wrote.   I have already shared the link with the U3A researchers and would now like to share it with members of this group.  I would like to hear any comments you have on content or style etc so I can may be instigate improvements before making it available to all.

    Here is the link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1XZeLwbexn6Dq2Y_lntbB9UQqkb7C-et0&usp=sharing

    The other place I have used a Google map extensively is on the Roath Local History website and in particular on the Roath Virtual War Memorial page.  Again I would appreciate any comments you have.  The page itself is beginning to get very long now and I need to start to thin somehow about putting the information on sub-pages.  https://roathlocalhistorysociety.org/local-history/war-memorials/roath-virtual-war-memorial

    Here’s just a reminder of how to devise your own map:

    • Log into your Google account.
    • Click on the nice dots next to your avatar in the top right.
    • Click maps
    • Click on the three lines on the top left of the screen
    • Click Your Places
    • Click maps
    • Click create map

  • Jigsaws

    I purchased a 1000 piece jigsaw just before lock-down from a charity shop for the princely sum of £2. It appeared to be complete, but after a week of frustration, I concluded there was a good reason why it only cost £2. So in the bin it went, and I thought of buying one online from Amazon. But at £15-£20 I decided to look elsewhere and found this free site, which gives you free access to a vast number of jigsaws.

    You will not find any 1000 piece puzzles, but a lot of 100, 150 and some 200 pieces, which will provide some variation in your lock-down status.

    HAVE FUN !

  • Gr gr gr gr granny Rebekha

    Thought you might enjoy this story. My gr gr gr gr granny Rebekha lived on a farm right next to the site of these shipwrecks.

    https://theedwardsfamilytree.blogspot.com/2019/06/granny-rebekhas-shipwreck.html

    Phil

    — Forum Responses —

    Yes, I enjoyed reading your account. Like you, I’ve enjoyed “constructing” stories around events in my ancestor’s lives – filling-in the gaps so-to-speak. Factumentary you might call it, or Life Stories.

    David Harrison June 4, 2020 11:03 am